We
often see movies set in foreign locales and think that—no matter the quality
of the movie itself—at least the cast is appearing to have fun. The cast
members of Unfinished Business look as
if fun is the last thing on any of their minds. They appear visibly bored by the
material. Perhaps we can be kinder and chalk it up to a simple matter of jet lag
on account of some haphazardly assembled shooting schedule.

Whatever
the case may be, it's obvious that no one's heart is in the game. They're simply
going through the motions of a screenplay by Steve Conrad that is itself doing
the same thing. A trio of businessmen arrive in Germany and have to cajole a
deal from some potential clients who appear to have changed their plans. We know
that these stressed-out characters are going to let loose. We know that
misadventures are in store. We know they're going to be fish out of water in a
foreign land. We know it, and boy, does the cast know it, too.

Watching
the movie is akin to watching the home movies of a group of friends on vacation,
if each and every one of those friends had better, more promising plans that
they had to skip on account of this damn trip that came up at the last minute.
None of them wants to disappoint his buddies, so none of them bothers to tell
the others that he's miserable and regretting every moment that he's here.

One can
see it on the actors' faces: This was a mistake. Maybe they're not completely
sure why. We have to suspect that at least one of these actors—the one whose
appearance in the movie makes the least sense—is painfully cognizant of each
and every reason. Nonetheless, it's there, and at times, it's uncomfortable to
witness.

The
actor whose doesn't seem to belong is Tom Wilkinson, who plays Tim, an unhappily
married man who joined this startup company after he was let go from his
previous job because of his age. What's depressing is that, from his long and
rather substantial career, we know Wilkinson is a consummate professional—a
dedicated performer whose very presence lends an air of respectability to
whatever material in which he's involved. Here, his character must do some kind
of psychedelic drug during a half-hearted party montage and describe a sexual
position known as the "wheelbarrow." Wilkinson is theoretically
playing deadpan to his more verbose and sillier co-stars, but he just appears
tired on more levels than it would be polite to detail.

We
don't blame him in the slightest. At first, it's amusing to hear Wilkinson
recite lines about Tim's vending machine-shaped wife and pining for some sexual
experience with a woman who doesn't make his life miserable. The same can be
said of Dave Franco's sexually and professionally virginal Mike Pancake, who
believes a vending machine is square-shaped. He's not too bright, that Mike
Pancake, who says his full name even after his co-workers repeatedly warn him
that it shifts the tone of meetings from business to breakfast.

Again,
the character is funny at first, but then he becomes decidedly less funny. It's
not because of repetition but due to the fact that it's soon revealed Mike has a
developmental disability. This, by the way, is a movie that forces an
anti-bullying message into the fray for no discernible reason, but hey, doesn't
Mike's intellectual disability result in him doing and saying really funny
things?

The
misplaced messaging comes as a result of the final character, Vince Vaughn's
Dan, the head of the startup company that specializes in selling refuse scraps
of metal. He and his company have one last chance to avoid bankruptcy by taking
this trip to Germany to close a big deal. Both of his children have problems
with bullying: his elder son (Britton Sear) because of his weight and his
younger daughter (Ella Anderson) because she fights a classmate who made fun of
her brother. All of it, of course, is just a reason for his trip to be doubly
terrible—that he could lose the business and that he can't help his family
members through their problems.

The
trio gets into complications. Dan and Tim's former boss (Sienna Miller) arrives
to close her own deal. Nick Frost plays the man they thought had final say, and
that results in Dan and Mike maneuvering around a series of penises at a
"gay fetish festival" (Mike thinks it's polite to shake the exposed
appendage). Some of Unfinished Business
is funny at first—but only at first. After that, it's a quick descent into
repetitive, predictable, and poorly considered gags.